"It's the end of the 35-hour week," deplored an official from the CGT, France's biggest trade union. The reform "will be the death of the 35-hour law", Le Monde opined. Has the change to France's working-time law, which parliament passed on February 9th, scrapped the 35-hour week? To judge by all the protests, it might seem so: some 300,000-500,000 demonstrators took to the streets of France last weekend in a bid to protect the 35-hour week from such a "fatal blow". Yet the stand-off is deceptive; as one official says, it "has more to do with politics than with economics". Last summer, when demands for a reform to the 35-hour week began to stir, President Jacques Chirac made clear that "the legal working time is, and will remain, 35 hours." The latest amendment explicitly states that there is no change to the legal working week. But it makes it easier for employees to choose to spend more time at work: they can, for instance, cash in extra days off and work instead, or work longer hours if a collective agreement is reached with their company.
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机译：法国最大的工会总工会（CGT）的一名官员对“ 35小时工作周结束了”表示遗憾。 Le Monde认为，这项改革“将是35小时法律的终结”。 2月9日通过的法国工作时间法变更是否废除了每周35小时的工作？从所有抗议活动来看，似乎是这样：上周末，约30万至500,000示威者走上法国街头，以保护35小时的一周免受此类“致命打击”。然而，僵持是欺骗性的。正如一位官员所说，“与政治有关而不是与经济有关”。去年夏天，当对每周35小时工作制的改革要求开始激起时，总统雅克·希拉克（Jacques Chirac）明确表示：“法定工作时间现在并将保持35小时。”最新修正案明确指出，法定工作周没有任何变化。但这使员工更容易选择花更多的时间在工作上：例如，他们可以多休假，换工作，或者如果与公司达成集体协议，则可以工作更长的时间。
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